Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee for Defense and Security Givi Targamadze said on March 2 that the Belarus authorities have refused to let the Georgian side observe the presidential elections in the country, scheduled for March 19.

“All this started on January 20, when the Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Belarus said that he is inviting missions from all the CIS members states except Georgia... However, after Georgia expressed protest at the CIS Parliamentary Assembly [on February 9-10] we were promised that the Georgian delegation would be allowed to [monitor] elections. Today, we received an absurd explanation [for this refusal], that the forms filled-out by us have not reached their destination,” Targamadze told Rustavi 2 television.

He said that although the Belarus CEC suspended accreditation of observers on February 25, citing an abundance, “we will make one more attempt to monitor the elections in frames of the OSCE Election Observation Mission.”

Chief of the Belarus State Security Service, the KGB, Stepan Sukhorenko said on March 1 that his service foiled a plot by the opposition to seize power in the country after the Presidential elections.

He also said that “fighters from Georgia” were expected to arrive in Belarus to help the opposition.